The parents of Jessica Saba, 4, who was born with a heart defect, fear that parents of children born with disabilities will ‘give up too early’ if child-euthanasia laws are passed.

CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY

MONTREAL — As Belgium legislators move forward with a proposed law to allow euthanasia for children, a 4-year-old girl from Canada is asking the king of Belgium to refuse to sign the legislation.

“Please do not sign the euthanasia law, for the sake of the children,” Jessica Saba says in a video appeal to King Philippe posted to YouTube. Within four days, the video had received more than 12,000 views.

Saba was born in Montreal in May 2009 with a severe heart deformity consisting of a completely blocked valve and an underdeveloped ventricle. She would likely have died after a few hours had she not undergone a series of heart operations at Montreal Children’s Hospital.

The surgeries were able to unblock Saba’s heart valve after six days, and her defective ventricle gradually began to develop.

The girl’s parents argue that if she had been born in a country that permitted the euthanasia of children, she could have been killed.

Legal euthanasia in Belgium began in 2002 for suffering patients of at least 18 years of age who are mentally sound and give their consent. In December 2013, the country recorded its first case of euthanasia for individuals who were not suffering from a terminal illness but were going blind.

The Belgian Senate recently passed a bill that would extend euthanasia to terminally ill children and dementia patients.

The government of Quebec, Canada, is currently considering its own law on euthanasia, similar to the original one adopted in Belgium more than a decade ago. The Quebec Human Rights Commission has recommended that euthanasia be expanded to include children.

Saba’s mother, Marisa, believes that such a euthanasia law could lead parents of sick or handicapped children to “give up too early.” What parents and their children need, she said, is to be surrounded by love and support for life, not euthanasia.

The young girl’s father, Dr. Paul Saba, has issued a personal appeal to the king of Belgium to reject the proposal to allow euthanasia for children in that country.

“There are millions of children born every year with congenital malformations,” he observes in the video.

Saba, a psychiatrist, said that with today’s palliative treatment, there is no need for patients to suffer, even at the end of their lives.

He also noted that if the practice is normalized in Belgium, there is a greater danger that it may spread to other countries.

It seems the whole issue is slightly misrepresented by the Saba family.
The Belgian law explicitly says it is up to the child to decide, not the doctors. On top of that, the child needs to able to take the decision for itself. This needs to be judged by a psychiatrist or psychologist. On top of that the parents need to agree and last the doctor(s) treating the child.
There is no way that Jessica Saba would have been euthanised under the proposed bill.

Thank God the four-year-old can speak! Pre-born children can’t. May God help us. My mother predicted in 1960 that abortion would lead to euthanasia. And now here it is even for children! Have mercy on us Lord. God bless you. Susan Fox http://www.christsfaithfulwitness.com

Posted by DJ Hesselius on Thursday, Feb, 6, 2014 12:21 PM (EDT):

Universal health care is great, unless you truly need medical care.
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Our national debt is currently over $17 trillion, and we have trillions upon trillions more in unfunded liabilities. (if the usdebtclock.org is to be believed.) High taxes, low labor force participation rates, rules and regulations that increase economic inefficiencies in the marketplace, (and a lack of population) all conspire to force down national productivity at a time when it is most needed.
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The Congressional Budge Office is not optimistic about our economic future. Interest on the debt and the costs of the AHA and Medicare/Medicaid will swamp the Federal budget. http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/09/17/cbo-warns-longterm-debt-will-overwhelm-federal-budget-n1702405
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The sick and aged are expensive. Eliminating the problem through euthanasia looks good to government budget crunchers. That the Culture of Death is advancing in this way should come as no surprise: it is one way to cut health care costs.

Posted by mrscracker on Thursday, Feb, 6, 2014 10:39 AM (EDT):

I need to go back & refresh my memory, but didn’t a previous King of Belgium step down from the throne temporarily just so an abortion bill could be passed without his signature? Not to judge without all the facts, but I wouldn’t be holding my breath in this case. Perhaps things have changed, though. There’s always hope & it’s a different king this time around.

Here’s what wikipedia had about the earlier abortion legislation:

“...King Baudouin notified the Prime Minister on March 30 that he could not sign the law without violating his conscience as a Catholic. Since the legislation would not have the force of law without the king’s signature, his refusal to sign threatened to precipitate a constitutional crisis.However, the problem was resolved by an agreement between the king and Prime Minister Martens by which the Belgian government declared the king unable to govern, assumed his authority and enacted the law, after which Parliament then voted to reinstate the king on the next day.The Vatican described the king’s action as a “noble and courageous choice” dictated by a “very strong moral conscience.” Others have suggested that Baudouin’s action was “little more than a gesture”, since he was reinstated as king just 44 hours after he was removed from power.”

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